This book contains a facsimile of the original 1577 book, along with a modernized transcription of the text. Attributed to Vicar William Samuel, it is the second earliest book on angling in the English language.

The single copy that survived was discovered in 1953, went to the British Museum, and ended up in the Princeton University Library.

The Arte of Angling was written 157 years before The Compleat Angler, by Isaac Walton, and there is information about the relationship of the two books in the introduction.A similarity between the two is the use of a dialogue between the Piscator(fisher), and the Viator (traveller).

The book is a gift from Jack C. Hutchinson to the Special Collections Fly Fishing Collection.